A bomb attack in a restive tribal area on Monday destroyed two tankers carrying fuel for Nato forces in Afghanistan, local officials said. The bomb planted under one tanker exploded near the village of Takhtabeg in the lawless Khyber tribal district, turning the vehicle into a huge ball of flames, administration official Rehan Gul Khattak said. Six people were injured.
The second tanker and a goods truck passing by also caught fire and the blaze spread to a petrol pump and timber stores on the roadside, he added. The tankers were carrying fuel for Nato forces in Afghanistan, Khyber administration chief Shafeerullah Wazir told AFP.
Nobody immediately claimed responsibility but several previous attacks on Nato supply vehicles have been blamed on Lashkar-e-Islam, or the Army of Islam. Khyber is on the main Nato land and supply route through Pakistan into Afghanistan, where more than 121,000 foreign forces are battling to reverse an escalating Taliban insurgency, now into its ninth year. Lashkar-e-Islam is a criminal home-grown Islamist group with ties to the Taliban that has stirred up trouble in Khyber and attacked Nato supply vehicles travelling through the area.